Cell-free and Cell-based Bioproduction

Resource preservation and the development of efficient material cycles are the current challenges for business and technology. In the health sector in particular, the sufficient and cost-effective availability of high-quality synthetic substance products is an essential basis for the ability to progress. Highly complex proteinogenic active ingredients, for example, form the basis for vaccine and antibody development. However, the demand for enzymes, complex peptides and proteins, or synthetic biomolecules in general, is also steadily increasing in food technology, agriculture, cosmetics and detergents.

Currently, these substances are often produced using living cells or organisms. However, these systems are subject to considerable limitations: A considerable amount of material and energy must be expended to maintain the metabolism of the microorganisms or cell cultures themselves, thus limiting the economic viability of this approach. In addition, many metabolites and end products are toxic or have a toxic effect on cells or organisms in higher concentrations than necessary for economic production. As a result, many important substances cannot be produced at all or only in small quantities.

This is where cell-free bioproduction of high-quality biomolecules opens up completely new possibilities. By exclusively using the subcellular components of the organisms necessary for synthesis, it is possible in suitable reaction environments to efficiently produce biomolecules with complex and also completely new properties. The technologies established at the Golm site enable the economically efficient use of these processes and thus create new foundations for the economical production of active proteins.